


Please Don't Hide It

by abyss1826



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Langst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Sickfic, Whump, in character team for this langst you guys I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 09:18:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12504096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyss1826/pseuds/abyss1826
Summary: Keith stood in front of the pod when it opened, ready to keep Lance steady as he came out. Instead, he ended up catching him, which made him worry immediately. Lance groaned and slumped into his chest, head lolling against Keith’s neck. Keith’s eyes widened. Lance’s face felt like it was burning.





	Please Don't Hide It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ElementRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElementRose/gifts).



> Sick/Injured Lance klance fic request written for my friend Brandon's birthday. hap the birth kiddo

**** “You alright back there Lance?” Keith asked, throwing a glance the other teen’s way.

“Of course I’m alright! Think the Blue Paladin can’t handle a little hiking?” Lance prompted cheerfully. Keith frowned but figured his concern was for nothing. If his boyfriend was having a hard time he’d ask Keith to slow down, surely.

But Lance  _ was _ having a hard time, and fuck if he was going to slow down or jeopardize the mission just because he felt like shit. He had to do his best no matter the circumstances in order to be useful. He was cold, his skin felt clammy under his armor, and his vision swam. He kept stumbling over rocks and branches as they trekked through the forested terrain, but Keith was ahead of him and saw none of it. 

The Paladins had split up into two and three in order to get to different points of the base. Lance and Keith would draw fire to a different part of the building while Pidge, Hunk and Shiro made their way to the control room. Hunk and Shiro would keep the fire that reached their group away from their young friend, while she hacked. Lance and Keith would make their way to the control room as well once the downloads were nearly complete, and they would get away in the Red Lion together. The lion was waiting in cover where the trees weren’t so close, ready to retrieve them on Keith’s signal.

Things went downhill when they converged in the control room. 

Lance, already exhausted from the effort it took to move and cover Keith in the hallways, had to get the second level of tech that was open air to look out on the first level so he had a place to cover the others from.

He wasn’t covering himself.

He couldn’t even stand, supporting himself against some sort of tall mainframe. All of his focus was directed at keeping himself upright, his bayard straight, and eyes on target. His whole body ached and he couldn’t tune it out, but he also couldn’t afford to let it distract him from protecting his friends. He couldn’t let them down.

He  _ wouldn’t  _ let them down.

He turned off his side of the coms when they were hiking so no one would hear his labored breathing, but with everyone in the same room, they still heard his scream of pain over the battle.

Keith’s scream of terror at seeing Lance falling over the railing deafened the others.

Lance hit the floor with a crack.

Keith threw his sword at the soldier on the second level. It hit but he didn’t wait to see it. 

Lance wasn’t moving.

Keith couldn’t breathe.

None of them could breathe.

“Retreat,” Shiro ordered, yelled, screamed. Lance’s left leg was twisted the wrong way. The arm on that side seemed broken above the elbow as well.  Shiro dreaded having to lift him but it had to happen. Hunk offered to carry him instead but Shiro needed him to provide cover fire. He looked back at Shiro during a lull in one of the hallways and blanched.

“Are you bleeding or is that Lance?” he asked, mounting panic obvious in his voice. Pidge looked and gasped. Keith forced himself not to. Red was already outside. 

“Must be on his back,” Shiro stated through clenched teeth.

The building shook. The sound of tearing metal got louder until half the hallway was open to the air and the former wall was the Red Lion’s open mouth. They hurried in, Pidge and Hunk looking wide-eyed at the tears on Keith’s face and then at each other.

“Pidge, call the castle and tell them to prepare a pod,” Shiro ordered.

“On it.”

“Do you want to put him down and look at where the bleeding is coming from?” Hunk asked anxiously.

“Yes, but the bones aren’t secured so I want to limit his movement as much as possible until we can splint him.”

“You think we’ll have to with the pod?”

“None of us have had broken bones before but I suspect that they would be healed out of alignment if we didn’t.” Hunk nodded seriously, joining Pidge’s link to the castle to make sure whatever splint-like thing Altea had was ready as soon as possible along with the pod.

Keith flew as steadily and as quickly as he could back to the castle but cursed as he had to weave to avoid ground fire. Another roar rocked the air and a flash of blue whizzed past Red. The monitor showed as the temperature dropped. They stopped being shot at but Keith couldn’t bother to see why.

They got to the castle without any further incident.

Coran was already at the hangar with what looked like the cross between a stretcher and an examination table. Possibly used for both purposes, Shiro thought as they ran behind the Altean to the infirmary across from the room with the healing pods. They were simple fractures, not compound, so Coran taped around the breaks with a plastic-like strip that he said would harden into what the Paladins equated to a cast. The stretcher did indeed have multiple functions, Hunk observed, watching as Coran used a screen Pidge had hooked up to it to see the position of their friend’s bones in real time so that he could realign them properly. When that was finished they could finally take a look at where the blood was coming from, but not for long.

Lance had been slashed with a sword, a downstroke Coran guessed. It had cracked the bottom edge of the armor before continuing down and slicing through the protective underlayer, the deepest part cutting into the muscle, a long gash all the way down a few inches to the right of Lance’s spine.

“It’s held up to cutting implements without a hitch in the past,” Coran exclaimed, distressed.

“Their swords might be forged from a different material now,” Pidge told him.

“I suppose they have had 10,000 years.…”

No one relaxed until Lance was secured in a pod, except for Allura who then sprinted to off to wormhole to an area of dead space where the team would be able to rest without any attacks. It would take about a day for him to come out, so the downtime wouldn’t be long, but it wasn’t quite downtime when these were the circumstances.

“So,” Pidge started, breaking the silence, “What was up with Red back there?” she asked playfully, looking at Keith. He wiped his face, looking mildly embarrassed.

“I may have… panicked, just… just a little.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever done anything ‘just a little’ in your  _ life _ ,” she teased, making them all chuckle. Keith was grateful.

“Yeah I’m sure _some_ people would agree with that,” he said dryly, side-eying Shiro, who shrugged innocently as if they _hadn’t_ , in fact, lived together as brothers for several years prior to Shiro being accepted at the Garrison.

“So, everyone get their blankets and pillows?” Hunk suggested. There was a chorus of agreement as everyone rushed off to their rooms, Pidge loudly challenging everyone to a race once she was already ahead of them. The guys yelled after her for cheating.

It was going to be a long day.

 

Keith stood in front of the pod when it opened, ready to keep Lance steady as he came out. Instead, he ended up catching him, which made him worry immediately. Lance groaned and slumped into his chest, head lolling against Keith’s neck. Keith’s eyes widened. Lance’s face felt like it was burning.

“Guys I think he has a fever,” he said, alarmed.

“What?” Hunk asked, surprised. He put the inside of his arm against Lance’s forehead. “He’s burning up!”

“Could the blade have been poisoned?” Shiro asked quickly, looking at Coran. The man frowned and scrolled through the readings from the pod.

“No, the pod would have detected something wrong.” He quickly ducked out to the infirmary to get something.

“Is he just sick?” Pidge asked. 

“He’d have told us if he was sick!” Keith argued. Hunk frowned.

“Maybe, I don’t know, he always refused to stay in the dorm when he was sick unless a teacher sent him back from class,” the Yellow Paladin told them.

“Wha’s going on?” they heard Lance ask, picking his head up slightly from Keith’s shoulder.

“You just came out of the pod,” Hunk told him.

“Are you sick?” Keith demanded, almost cutting the other boy off.

“No, ‘m fine.” Everyone frowned. Coran returned with a metal tube about the size of a pencil in hand.

“Open up!” the man said cheerfully.

“What?’ Lance asked, and Coran used it as his opportunity to stick the rod under his tongue. It glowed after about ten ticks, projecting small numbers.

“52!” Coran announced, “Seems odd but-”

“What’s the conversion to Fahrenheit?” Pidge asked.

“Multiply two,” Hunk replied. 

“Oh geez,” she muttered.

“Coran, we need to lower his temperature as soon as possible is there anything you have that can do that? Ice packs or anything?” Shiro asked urgently. 

“I think I have something like that somewhere, be back in just a tick!”

Keith held Lance tighter even though the boy was trying to take more of his own weight.

“Why didn’t you say you were sick?” Keith asked, visibly upset.

“It’s not that bad, really,” Lance insisted.

“We’d be taking you to a hospital by now back on Earth, Lance,” Shiro admonished, “It really is  _ that bad _ .” Lance seemed to wilt. “Keith, you get him to his room, Pidge you can look through the infirmary and see if you can translate to see if there’s anything that might help him other than ice packs. Hunk, get some water and a bucket since we don’t know what symptoms he has aside from the fever. I’ll inform the Princess on what’s happened.”

Everyone split off to do their assigned jobs, Keith keeping a steadying arm behind Lance as they walked to the Blue Paladin’s room. He was shivering despite the heat that rolled off of him.

“Why didn’t you tell us that you were sick?” Keith asked again, trying to be softer this time.

“Because Zar-” he was cut off by a bought of his own coughing for a moment “- Zarkon isn’t going to give us sick days Keith. I have to-” he was cut off by Keith this time.

“You sound like Allura and  _ she  _ didn’t even say that! Lance, you can’t…. Don’t do this!” Keith didn’t know how to put his feelings about what Lance shouldn’t do into words and it was frustrating him. Someone else would be better at this, Hunk would, he’d be there soon. He’d help. 

For now, Lance was quiet, and Keith found him his pajamas while he sat on the bed. Keith opted to wait outside the door while Lance changed. Hunk and Coran showed up while he was in the hallway. Hunk told Keith that he would talk to Lance about it later when he was feeling better. Lance opened the door to tell Keith he was done changing.

The ‘ice pack’ Coran had brought was like a limp packet of gels that mixed when the middle partition was bent in half and froze. Hunk jogged off to get a small towel to keep Lance’s bare skin from it.

“So what happened?” Lance asked, sitting back on the bed.

“You don’t know?” Keith asked, concerned.

“You were hurt very badly,” Coran stated.

“You got slashed along your back, and fell from the balcony you had gone to to get a better shot,” Keith said. “Your arm and leg broke.”

“Is that what these are for?” Lance asked, pulling up his sleeve to show the cast-like molding around his arm.

“Silly me,” Coran chuckled, “I forgot to take those off of you, I’ll be just another tic.”

Keith and Lance were left alone again.

Keith sat down on the bed next to him.

“How long have you been sick for?”

“A couple days,” Lance admitted sheepishly. Keith sighed, unsure what to say other than that he  _ shouldn’t do that _ .

“You scared me,” he sighed. “You scared all of us.”

“‘M sorry.” Lance leaned into Keith’s side and Keith wrapped his arm around Lance’s side.

“Just don’t do anything like that again okay?” His voice cracked on the last word. 

“Okay,” Lance whispered.

When Hunk came back with the towel to put the ice pack in Lance had to lay down and rest. After Coran cut away the casts Keith was the only one still in the room with him.

“I guess I’ll get going so you can sleep, huh?”

“Stay,” Lance almost whined, catching Keith’s hand before he could get up from the edge of the bed. “‘M cold.”

“You’re gonna get me sick,” Keith scolded, taking off his boots and jacket.

“I just won’t kiss you,” Lance replied, shifting over closer to the wall to make room.

“Whatever you say, babe.”

When Pidge came in an hour later after finding something that seemed like it could help with congestion she snickered and snapped a picture off the tablet-like thing she had fund rooting around the castle for electronics to experiment on. Lance was huddled against Keith’s chest, the two boys an awkward looking tangle of hard limbs and blankets. 

She couldn’t fathom how they found it comfortable.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you liked! my tumblr is smallest-turtle


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